Once again, monolingual Spain

One need only recall the active role of the PP in the Valencian Community or Aragon in favor of linguistic separatism (they even went so far as to invent the LAPAO) to avoid being too surprised by the PP's maneuvering to prevent Catalan from becoming an official language of the European Union. And yet, it's incredibly harsh to hear that they've organized a series of protests in Brussels against Catalan. It's probably the most separatist move they've ever made, because if Catalan is a Spanish language, why would a Spanish party campaign against it abroad? The answer can only be one: because if it's Catalan, it's not Spanish. Period. This is how it goes, and we all know it, because for centuries, monarchy or republic, dictatorship or democracy, the Spanish identity has been monolingual.

If the position is pathetic, the justification is even more so. The PP claims to be against Catalan's official status in the EU because "it's a practical example of the language being used for political purposes," because "Sánchez needs the seven votes of Junts." The latter is true. As true as the fact that Aznar needed the votes of Convergència to be sworn in and ceded part of the personal income tax to the Generalitat, deployed the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) on the roads, and abolished compulsory military service and the civil governor. In other words, according to the argument, the PP used the Treasury, the Civil Guard, the army, and public order for political purposes. Stop the machines, as Àlex Gutiérrez says. In an ideal world, politics would act on principles and not interests, but things are as they are. And the interests of the PP – and of Feijóo, the moderate Galician speaker (let's see how he tells it at home) – are clear: they must dispute the Spanish flag with Vox, and there's never anything better than doing so against the Catalan.